A state legislative panel today held a hearing on the status of a law requiring integrity oversight monitors for Hurricane Sandy projects worth $5 million or more. Here, the Ortley Beach section of Toms River is pictured after Sandy ravaged the community.
(Andrew Mills/The Star-Ledger)

TRENTON — A state Treasury Department official today said that although the first Hurricane Sandy integrity oversight monitor reports won’t be issued to the legislature until July there have been other controls in place to ensure money is spent appropriately.

But Democratic lawmakers contended that the state’s distribution of federal recovery funding has not been transparent, leaving the public with little confidence in the process.

David Ridolfino, the associate deputy state treasurer, testified before a legislative panel in Trenton today about a law that requires monitors on Sandy recovery contracts worth $5 million or more. Gov. Chris Christie signed the law in March of last year, but the first monitor was not assigned until the beginning of this year and the first quarterly reports are not due until July 1.

Ridolfino told the Assembly State and Local Government committee that his department had to navigate a complicated process in order to enact the law, including: pre-qualifying a group of contractors, assessing the risk of contracts and then selecting firms from the pre-established pool to oversee contracts.

Assemblywoman Linda Stender (D-Union) said she “still found it very difficult to get her arms around the notion that we’ve had projects happening, money being spent, recovery energy moving forward presumably, and there was no oversight. It just seemed to take so long.”

Ridolfino said there was oversight during that time, but Stender said that oversight is not something that the public sees.

One issue that was discussed at length is that the state Department of Community Affairs has not yet released reports from an oversight monitor hired last summer to help them oversee housing recovery programs.

Ridolfino said the firm hired by DCA — Cohn Reznick — is not subject to the reporting requirements in the law because they are an internal monitor. He said another firm, Navigant, was engaged by the Treasury Department to serve as an independent monitor.